In a Flickering Light + Looking Back (live music version by Paul Koek)

In a flickering light is a performance about the addiction to the light of our devices. Four actors are watching a source of light which suggests the reflection of a film or video. The audience ‘watches the film’ on the faces of the actors. These faces behave as if they were masks. A mask has an intrinsic duality: it hides the face but also reveals – in a ritualistic way – ‘the inside’. That which normally cannot be seen we can now read from the face. The way in which these ‘masks’ transform the head into an object is reminiscent of the sculptures that Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen make.

In a flickering light is made with the assumption that the presence of technique in our lives influences our way of looking, thinking and expression. The performance hopes to offer a reflection on our fluid society, in which technique as increasingly become a condition for our existence; there are very few people that don’t resort to ‘screen time’ when they are alone for a moment.

At Veem house, the performance is preceded by a screening of the video Looking Back from 2016, and on this occasion Paul Koek will perform the soundtrack live on timpani.

Looking Back is a video installation filmed at Utrecht Central Station during the performance how can we know the dancer from the dance?, and takes the act of looking as its subject.